Mozilla's Fennec for Windows Mobile

Mozilla has released Fennec alpha 1 - a Windows Mobile-targeted version of it's mobile browser

Mozilla has released Fennec alpha 1 - a Windows Mobile-targeted version of it's mobile browser. A pre-alpha build of Fennec for Windows Mobile 6 was released in February, but that version was plagued by memory-management issues.These early memory issues had been ironed out for the alpha, through the use of the JeMalloc memory-management library.

Fennec is already available in alpha form for the Maemo Linux operating system on Nokia's N810 internet tablet.

The Windows Mobile alpha was specifically designed for the HTC Touch Pro handset. However, he added that the browser's user interface had been rebuilt to make it more scalable to different devices.

Fennec's user interface controls have been rebuilt to be entirely CSS-based. This will allow us to more easily adjust our UI for various screen
sizes and resolutions in the future. It also demonstrates how web
technologies can be used to create compelling user interfaces.

The new version of Fennec for Windows Mobile supports add-ons, which
are a key feature for Firefox and a unique feature for Mozilla's mobile
browser. Several add-ons have already been created for Fennec,
including an autocorrect function for mistyped URLs, and a feature that
allows Twitter messages to be posted from the browser's address bar.

The next stages of Fennec's development for the Windows Mobile
platform would focus on performance issues, Lassey said. One set of
optimizations will target graphics performance, while another set will
address optimization for high-latency networks.

The engineer added that Fennec Alpha 1 for Windows Mobile 6 was
only to be used by developers and testers, and should not be used for
daily browsing tasks, as it contains various bugs.